Stormy Daniels' Lawyer Went to Democrats for Help Fighting Trump

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer reached out to top Democratic operatives for assistance in his legal battle with President Donald Trump, The New York Times reports.

Michael Avenatti made contact with a member of David Brock’s network of liberal groups, and a person connected to Avenatti’s law firm connected with two people with ties to important Democratic donors, but they offered no financial help, according to the Times’ sources.

Brock’s group declined, not seeing the point in contributing to a legal battle when Avenatti has mostly attacked Trump through the media, two Democratic political operatives told the Times. According to Avenatti, the case’s legal fees and other expenses are being paid entirely through donations from a crowdfunding website, which has raised over $527,000 from 15,000 donors.

Sources said that Avenatti called Bradley Beychok, the president of the nonprofit organization American Bridge, just days before the website went up, and implied that he was looking to raise up to $2 million partly from Democratic donors and groups.

American Bridge also decided not to contribute.

Beychok did acknowledge to the Times that he had a conversation with Avenatti, who called him in early March, but would not describe what they discussed. Brock declined to comment.

In an interview on Thursday, Avenatti denied actively trying to raise money from any political donors, saying, "this isn’t about politics."

He added, "I can’t tell you the name of every person that I have spoken to, or not spoken to, over the last three months, but what I can tell you is that we have not taken any political-associated dollars from anyone on the right or anyone on the left. Period."

"We’ve contacted people on the right and the left relating to a variety of issues," Avenatti said. "We have not sought any money from anyone on the right or the left."

He added that they have passed on "big money" donations from members of both parties "because we’re not going to have this politicized."